The Bills are on their way to a top five pick in the 2019 draft, perhaps even a top two or three pick. At 2-6 for the season, it now seems like the only remaining games they will even have a chance to win are the home games against the Jets, Dolphins, and Lions. And in every one of those, they’ll be facing a team with a superior quarterback. Buffalo waited 10 years for a home prime-time game, and the guess would be that it wasn’t worth it. Worse, the Bills’ woeful offense was put on display for all the country to see. All in all, it was another low point for a franchise that majors in low points.

Pass Offense

The numbers are meaningless. Derek Anderson had 152 yards passing and had produced six points through three quarters, then piled up some garbage yardage after the Patriots had pulled away in the fourth quarter. He finished with 290 yards before exiting with an apparent arm or shoulder injury while suffering his third sack. Kelvin Benjamin made a 40-yard catch, and then was invisible the rest of the night. Charles Clay was his typically useless self with three catches for 36 yards. Jason Croom almost made a nice TD reception, but he couldn’t quite haul it in, as replay showed. The lone semi-bright spot was Zay Jones continuing to make strides as he caught six balls for 55 yards.

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D-

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D

Run Offense

The Bills can no longer move the ball on the ground. A strong running team during LeSean McCoy’s first three seasons in Buffalo, they are incapable of getting any push up front with an offensive line that is basically weak from side to side and yes, that includes LT Dion Dawkins who has not played well recently. McCoy looks like a past-his-prime 30-year-old trying to run in this offense and he had yet another horrible night with 13 yards on 12 carries. In fact, he gained 12 yards on his first attempt out of a wildcat direct snap, and then had 1 yard net on his last 11 carries. That’s not a misprint. Chris Ivory is better-suited for this offense right now because he takes the ball just slams it into whatever small crease there is. He averaged 5.7 yards on his six carries.

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D-

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D-

Pass Defense

Tom Brady finished with a pretty quiet 324 yards. He completed only four passes of 20 yards or more, and did not throw a TD pass for the second year in a row in Buffalo. Of course, his teams won those two games by a combined 39 points. The Bills did a nice job on Rob Gronkowski who clearly wasn’t at full strength. He caught only three of his eight targets for 43 yards, one of his worst games against Buffalo. The guys who killed the Bills were RB James White who caught 10 for 79 yards, and Julian Edelman who had 9 for 104. They worked the middle of the field to perfection, and the Bills couldn’t get a handle on them as they caught 19 of their 23 targets. The pass rush was not threatening and there were too many plays among Brady’s 48 dropbacks where he had too much time to scan the field and get to his check-down read.

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C+

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C

Run Defense

The Bills did a nice job in limiting the Patriots to a 3.0 average on their 25 rushing attempts. The only breakout was a 22-yarder by Cordarrelle Patterson, normally a WR who lined up in the backfield and had 10 carries as New England played without rookie RB Sony Michel. On his other nine he gained just 16 yards. LB Matt Milano continued his up and down season, bouncing back from a rough game in Indianapolis to make seven tackles and break up two passes. LB Tremaine Edmunds was having an active night with eight first-half tackles, but he suffered a concussion and did not play in the second half.

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B

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B

Special Teams

Stephen Hauschka is the most consistent player on the team. He does his job well every week and he provided all the points with two lengthy field goals on a windy night. Corey Bojorquez had a weak 31.6 net average and almost had a punt blocked after he dropped the snap. Micah Hyde had a 31-yard punt return that set up a field goal, and Marcus Murphy had a 29-yard kickoff return. Of course, Murphy also nearly fumbled a kickoff, but he was properly ruled down by contact.

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C

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C

Coaching

As is usually the case, the defensive staff bails out the offense. Leslie Frazier and Sean McDermott continue to get all they can out of their defense and while the numbers don’t look great — Brady’s 324 passing yards in particular — the truth is the defense gave the Bills a chance to win until it finally buckled in the fourth quarter. The coverage schemes were very good and Brady, despite piling up yardage, looked frustrated at times. On offense, Brian Daboll’s big wrinkle was using the wildcat. And after McCoy broke a nice run on the first play, it was a mess thereafter. It’s tough to kill Daboll because he’s working in a near impossible situation with egregiously bad quarterbacks, receivers and linemen, but at some point, coaching has to make a difference and so far it hasn’t.